Theoderic the Great

Theoderic the Great (454-526) was King of the Ostrogoths from 475 to 526, succeeding Theodemir and preceding Athalaric.

Biography
Theoderic the Great was born in 454 AD in Pannonia, the son of Theodemir and Ereleuva. He was sent to Constantinople as a hostage by his father in order to secure good relations between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantine Empire, and in 473 he would succeed his father as the ruler of the Ostrogoth people. In 484, he defeated Theodoric Strabo and united his Moesian Ostrogoths with Theodoric Strabo's Thracian Ostrogoths, forming a solid front. The united Ostrogoths became very powerful, and Emperor Zeno of Byzantium appointed Theoderic Magister Militum and a Roman consul. However, Theoderic was ungrateful, and he ravaged the lands of the Byzantine Empire in Greece and even threatened Constantinople itself. His hatred was diverted in 488 when Emperor Zeno dispatched him to overthrow King Odoacer of Italy, a Heruli barbarian who had seized power in the former Western Roman Empire for himself and betrayed Zeno. Theoderic invaded Italy and took the capital of Ravenna, and he killed Odoacer at a reconciliation banquet. He became the new ruler of Italy, promoting racial harmony but forbidding intermarriage between the 250,000 Ostrogoth settlers and the native Roman populace. He ruled Italy peacefully until his death in 526, the first peaceful period in Italian history since the reign of Valentinian.